Review: It's all about the burger at Hopscotch

Dec. 26, 2012

Updated Aug. 21, 2013 1:17 p.m.

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The Duke, an American cheese-stuffed patty topped with slow-cooked pulled pork is featured at Hopscotch Tavern in Fullerton. The tavern has a great selection of draft beer and over 100 whiskey varieties. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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James Wood, director of libations, crafts a classic cocktail in front of a backdrop of over 100 varieties of whiskey at Hopscotch Tavern in Fullerton. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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The Duke, an American cheese-stuffed patty topped with slow-cooked pulled pork is featured at Hopscotch Tavern in Fullerton. The tavern has a great selection of draft beer and over 100 whiskey varieties. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Hopscotch Tavern in Fullerton is a draw for train commuters as well as draft beer and whiskey afficionados. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

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Hopscotch Tavern is located in the historic Pacific Electric Railway Motor Transit Stages building by the train station in downtown Fullerton. ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

The Duke, an American cheese-stuffed patty topped with slow-cooked pulled pork is featured at Hopscotch Tavern in Fullerton. The tavern has a great selection of draft beer and over 100 whiskey varieties.ANA VENEGAS, ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER

Hopscotch

"Should I get the barbecue ribs or the burger?" I ask, and my waitress responds, "Ooh, our burgers are really juicy." She says this in slow motion, as if she's picturing herself eating a burger at this very moment, transfixed.

So I order the Duke, the best of both worlds, a burger topped with pulled pork. The patty is stuffed with cheese, and when I bite into it, a grenade goes off. Hot yellow crude squirts in every direction. It's all over my hands and face. It's on my elbow. It's a wet, juicy cheese that tastes like it might be Velveeta, or at the very least something in that category, which I guess is appropriate for a sprawling bar where taxidermy sheep and elk stare at me from the walls while the loudspeakers blare the greatest hits of Lynyrd Skynrd, Steely Dan, the Doors and the Eagles.

Hopscotch is definitely more a bar than a restaurant, and they get more than a few things right, starting with the burgers, but also an extraordinary craft beer selection, with more than two dozen on tap.

For now, though, skip the mac 'n' cheese – a bland embarrassment that needs to go back to the drawing board immediately.

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